The City of Kortrijk refurbishes office furniture

Circular goal leads to new internal cooperation projects

The merger of the city services and the Public Centre for Social Welfare (OCMW) in Kortrijk was an excellent opportunity to commit to the circularity of office furniture.

In an initial phase, an inventory was drawn up of the material at the various sites. Various avenues of action were then deployed:

• Optimisation of stock management
• Furniture reuse wherever possible, also with local partners such as schools and associations
• Repair and refurbish in-house furniture where necessary and possible
• Research into the profitability of as-a-service models. This avenue turned out to be less rewarding.
• Circular criteria and chain transparency for new contract documents, including the availability of spare parts, compatibility and expansion.

The city's own workers were used to repair, redesign and clean existing furniture. These colleagues are now completely on board with the idea. They are working with the purchasers in the search for tailor-made solutions.

This example shows that the solution doesn’t always have to be sought from external companies, and that a lot can be achieved with in-house staff. Regular consultations between building managers and purchasers are required to properly identify changing needs.